40 million houses too many — one explanation for falling prices

America has too many big houses — 40 million, to be exact — because consumers are shifting preferences to condos, apartments and small homes, experts told the New Partners for Smart GrowthThursday, holding its 11th annual conference in San Diego through Sunday..

Factors [for why preferences are changing] include a desire for shorter commutes, walkable neighborhoods, economic considerations and, in the case of Generations X and Y, born between 1965 and 2000, they want the non-car mobility they did not get as youngsters.

“Having the freedom not to be tied down to a vehicle all the time is a big plus to that generation,” Molinaro said.

sd u-t, 02.02.12.

yay, san diego gets the news, finally.

That Smart Growth conference looked interesting..but the first draft of my thesis is due on tues., so no go.

suburbs of LA

I remember when I sent a google maps link to UTC (the area around UCSD) to a swedish friend, he told me he had never seen this type of layout before.

yeah.. retarded subdivisions.

Valciente and Martin, who are in their 70s, tend to orange and other fruit trees and corn on their 6 1/2-acre farm. Chickens roam uncaged, pecking at the dirt around the pomegranate trees, pepper plants and cacti in the yard.

The AVE trains speed by the small farmstead several times an hour, “and it hasn’t affected us at all,” Valciente said.

“We don’t even feel them,” added Martin. Even though their house is close to the tracks, she said, the trains create no wind turbulence and are less bothersome than slower-moving regional commuter trains because noise from the AVE trains passes so quickly…

That experience stands in contrast to the loud and growing objections to California’s plans by some farmers in the San Joaquin Valley, where faith in the state rail authority and the economy are in short supply. Growers and ranchers say they fear losing farmland and even their homes to the tracks, they worry that tracks across their land will keep them from moving easily across their fields, and they doubt they’ll be fairly compensated for their property or troubles.

sfgate, 22.01.12.
and then washington post’s opinion that california shouldn’t be saddled with more costly projects: California’s high-speed rail to nowhere, 09.01.12.

Solar grid parity is considered the tipping point for solar power, when installing solar power will cost less than buying electricity from the grid. It’s also a tipping point for the electricity system, when millions of Americans can choose energy production and self-reliance over dependence on their electric utility.

But this simple concept conceals a great deal of complexity. And given the stakes of solar grid parity, it’s worth exploring the details.

read more: grist.org, 15.01.2012.

energy economics! complicated.

but good to have this all explained,
and even better to know that we’re reaching parity. 
(and that we may soon have access to affordable sustainable energy for our own homes.)

“Talk to any business person about not having a benefits-vs.-cost discussion and they’ll say, ‘Duh, you mean you don’t do that?’ ” said the commission’s executive director, Steve Heminger. “They insist on it, but in the transportation profession it is not all that common. … This levels the playing field.”

BART’s plan to run express trains and more frequent trains is the highest rated project, with a $60 to $1 benefit/cost ratio.

Next is a project many may have never heard about — Treasure Island congestion pricing, at $59 in benefits per $1 in costs.

read more: mercurynews, 21.11.11.

..even though renewable energy is on the market many companies producing it currently still rely heavily on state support and it doesn’t always succeed as it’s supposed to. The markets are unfortunately only dictated by profits and quartal-thinking. And as Surowiecki suggested the energy market is not like most other markets. Indeed, the economics of alternative energy are such that private investors, left to their own devices, are bound to underinvest in it, since the considerable social benefits—cleaner air, fewer greenhouse emissions—accrue to everyone, not just to direct customers. That means that the economic rate of return is significantly less than the social rate of return. Energy markets are also dominated by entrenched, regulated companies, and that reduces the incentive for investment.

1) Make a choice on how your electricity is produced

If you’d happen to live in Finland or Sweden I’d strongly recommend you to have a peek at this company’s site and possibly make a change to something more sustainable: kraft & kultur.

I’m sure that other countries have their kraft & kultur also, find them. :)

2)Your Washer and Dryer Are Huge Energy Hogs!

We all know that the biggest energy hog in the average home is the washer and dryer. You can significantly reduce the amount of energy you use if you upgrade your machines to newer, EnergyStar certified models, but if that isn’t in the budget, try tossing in a pair of dry hand towels into your next wet dryer load. Studies have shown you can reduce each dryer load by as much as 20 minutes with the inclusion of two simple dry wash cloths. If you don’t have an energy efficient dryer, this will help you save money on electricity right away… [or just use a foldable drying rack ($10 at Ikea) and let evaporation do its work!]

4) Wash Your Clothes In Cold Water

platowantedtoblog, 16.11.11.
a waste of energy? thenewyorker, 10.10.11. 

The economist talks about fracking and the cost of solar power.

..So it’s worth pointing out that special treatment for fracking makes a mockery of free-market principles. Pro-fracking politicians claim to be against subsidies, yet letting an industry impose costs without paying compensation is in effect a huge subsidy. They say they oppose having the government “pick winners,” yet they demand special treatment for this industry precisely because they claim it will be a winner.

…

But Solyndra’s failure was actually caused by technological success: the price of solar panels is dropping fast, and Solyndra couldn’t keep up with the competition. In fact, progress in solar panels has been so dramatic and sustained that, as a blog post at Scientific American put it, “there’s now frequent talk of a ‘Moore’s law’ in solar energy,” with prices adjusted for inflation falling around 7 percent a year.

This has already led to rapid growth in solar installations, but even more change may be just around the corner. If the downward trend continues — and if anything it seems to be accelerating — we’re just a few years from the point at which electricity from solar panels becomes cheaper than electricity generated by burning coal.

And if we priced coal-fired power right, taking into account the huge health and other costs it imposes, it’s likely that we would already have passed that tipping point.

But will our political system delay the energy transformation now within reach?

nytimes, 06.11.11.

apartments in SF’s Hayes Valley, dec.1997.

Americans have been watching protests against oppressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet in our own democracy, 1 percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income—an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret.

This new inequality [shrinking opportunity] goes on to create new distortions, undermining efficiency even further. To give just one example, far too many of our most talented young people, seeing the astronomical rewards, have gone into finance rather than into fields that would lead to a more productive and healthy economy.

vanityfair, 05.2011.

(Source: stoweboyd, via emergentfutures)

Q: Why are there so few economists in politics, as it is one of the most important issues in a country? Is it that they’d rather become professors, work in the private sector, become advisers or work in the Treasury, or do they think it is too compromising? —Neil 

A: You ask an intriguing and important question. Many countries around the world have elected economists as president. In the U.S., however, economists generally do not fit into the political framework. Why? One guess is that they are trained to think rationally and tell the truth about data. As any observer of U.S. politics knows, rationality and unvarnished data are practically forbidden on the campaign trail. Politicians (and, presumably, voters) are much more interested in emotion and rhetoric. That said, some administrations (Obama’s, for one) hold economists in far higher regard than others.

Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics.

I would read Superfreakonomics.

[There’s a whole Freakonomics website! with blog and radio/podcast!
didn’t know that!]

pagrotsky:

I en radiodebatt i samband med den amerikanska budgetkrisen häromdagen fick jag den överraskande frågan om det finns några paralleller mellan USA och Grekland, mellan världens enda supermakt och världens just nu mest utdömda slagpåse. Vid första anblicken tyckte jag frågan var korkad, men…

I set my twitter “trending now” location to Sweden (closest to Finland..), and right now, #pagrotskycitat and Leif Pagrotsky. What and who is this? A Swedish Social Democratic politician from Göteborg/Gothenburg. 

Interesting blog post about the parallels of the US and Greece. 

Swedish practice! (or just use g.translate.) Pretty easy to figure out if you know English plus basics of Swedish.